New everything-looks-like-a-nail theory:
Scrupulosity is a form of narcissistic injury. It is the tearing-at-the-seams damage that results from an attempt to stretch your personal identity over a consequentialist or deontic moral framework that is not shaped to support human narratives.
With religion, the problem is often much worse, because religious communities understand this phenomenon and actively try to exacerbate it.
Some very high-minded and rarefied forms of religious practice – various mysticisms, mostly, and the purest strains of mitnagdic Judaism – use something akin to the fundamental logic of the EA theorists, except that they replace “QALYs” with “inherently divine action.” This isn’t about you. This is about God, and praise, and holiness [ / adherence to the Law]. Do what is right to do. Focus on the glory of heaven [ / the fact that you are doing what is commanded]. Stop thinking so much about yourself. It’s totally beside the point.
That’s rare, though, and really super rare outside dedicated clerical communities. What you usually get, instead, is a very cruel promise:
If you follow the rules well enough, if you are sufficiently holy in thought and word and deed, then you will get to incorporate it into your identity. You will be a Holy Person. You will be happy. You will be fulfilled. You will be saved. You will be welcomed into the Kingdom of God.
Not saying you’re wrong here, but a smidgeon of Christian theology will teach you that Christianity says precisely the opposite of that bold text. (if anything, it’s much more akin to the viewpoint you attribute to consequentialist scrupulosity)
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Jesus came for the not-Holy People, but for Sinners.
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
PLEASE can people listen to like a 45-minute talk on Christianity before doing complicated philosophy and sociology on it?
Not sure whether it’s my “complicated philosophy and sociology” to which you’re objecting here. Assuming that it is…
…yep, that is totally a very reasonable lesson to derive from the Gospels! Which is why so many do!
(There are also some kinda contrary lessons that you can also derive from the Gospels, if you’re so inclined, and Lord knows you can spend a very long time going down that particular rabbit hole and trying to fit all the puzzle-pieces together. There’s a reason that every chapter of the Summa Theologica is counted as a separate miracle, yo.)
But, from a practical human-psychology standpoint, it doesn’t really matter what the theologians say unless you’re a theologian yourself. It matters how your religious environment actually operates, and what values it inculcates in you.
And with regard to that – well, I can’t really do better than to quote one of my friends, who comes from a background of faith and deals with scrupulosity issues:
Yeah, I mentioned that objection, in the form of “this is what the mental model I have of my Intervarsity friends is saying right now.“ To which I reply “sure, yes, that is what a lot of people say, but it’s not what they do or how they act, and even faithful evangelical protestants who care deeply about salvation by grace and being freed from the tyranny of works suffer a lot from scrupulosity." I have met them. I have read their blog posts.
Okay, that’s a fair response. Indeed it is hard to get things you believe into things you alieve. (that’s one interpretation of the virtue of faith) I would say that “religious practice” in the sense of what people talk about and how people try to act is different though from what believe alieve, what you can tell from their actions and emotions. (and the words are not just words - the gospel does break down unhealthy scrupulosity for some people!)
So sure, Christians don’t do Christianity well enough to get some of the practical benefits, but that doesn’t mean the religion itself is exacerbating the problems, as you say in the OP. (and from the inside perspective, those benefits aren’t really the point anyways)
(being repetitive under the cut)
…ah. I think I see the problem here. In part, anyway.
“With religion, the problem is often much worse…” was not meant to be translated as “all religious practice involves instilling people with nightmarish scrupulosity mindsets.” That would be, uh, dumb. Rather – “the religious version of scrupulosity (when it arises) is often worse than the EA version, because there are often agents who are actively invested in cultivating it.”
*****
That said: in general, I’m inclined to get kind of argumentative in response to claims of the form “but the True Religion really says X!” What the True Religion really says is complicated, and subject to tremendous interpretive dispute, which is why there’s been tremendous interpretive dispute. Sola fide is not a synonym for Correct Christianity, or even Correct Protestantism.